As we prepare our state of mental health for the monthly economic idiocy known as “non-farm payroll report Friday,” I wanted to point out just how silly the markets – and the “economic” reports the that influence the short term direction of the markets – have become.

Perhaps the most, for lack of a better word, retarded indicator of economic vitality is the weekly jobless claims report. Nothwithstanding the fact that this “metric” is tortured by the vagaries and fraudulent handling of Government data collectors and statisticians, the interpretation of the data is now abused to an extreme degree.

The trend for the last 18-24 months has been to promote a jobless claims number below 300k as an indication of a strong labor market. I even saw a Marketwatch article in the past two weeks which asserted that the jobless claim report indicated “tightness” in the labor market. Explain that one to the large portion of the 38% of working age people who are not in the labor force because they gave up looking for a job that pays more than the amount of money available to them from the various Government welfare programs.

Since January 2007, the labor force participation rate has plummeted from 66% to 62%. Tens of millions have been permanently terminated from corporate America payrolls. From February 2006 to March 2009, the weekly jobless claims spiraled higher from 289k to nearly 700k. That reflected the mass layoffs and job eliminations caused by the financial collapse of 2008/2009.

The reason jobless claims have trended lower since then is not because more people found jobs again, and are keeping those jobs, its because overall there are less people working full-time in jobs that qualify for unemployment benfits when they do lose their jobs.

This graph I constructed from the St Louis Fed data supports my assertion – I’d love to hear Steve Liesman or one of the turd-brains on Bloomberg or Fox Biz explain this graph:

Furthermore, its a function of the simple law of averages. There’s less people employed in jobs with jobless claims benefits now than there were in 2009, so it follows that there will be a lot less jobless claims filings now than when the big purge in employment hit the economic system.

In fact, the jobless claims metric is largely meaningless in any regard as an in indicator of economic anything, other than to vaguely represent the amount of money the Government is paying out to those who are left in the workforce that qualify to file for this taxpayer-financed benefit. Beyond that, the “economic” metric completely useless.

Of course, never waste the release of an economic report, regardless of whether the data is positive or negative, or even completely meaningless. The graph below shows Comex Paper Gold trading in 10-minute intervals since 8:00 a.m. EST (x-axis is MST):

As you can see gold was slammed the moment the report was released despite the fact that the report disappointed expectations and showed a 14% year over year decline in factory order for July. If anything, gold should have shot up on the expectation that a weakening economy will lead to more QE.

In fact, the ECB’s Mario Draghi today announced that the ECU was going to, in a roundabout way, expand the ECB’s money printing program by enabling the Central Bank to buy a bigger portion of the sovereign-issued bonds it purchases. He also suggested that the ECB would consider increasing QE.

The S&P 500 futures shot straight on this announcement. Gold should have as well. But you can see from the graph above that gold was sold down in the London paper market as soon as London opened. Obviously the entities doing the selling wanted to manipulate the price of gold lower ahead of a gold-friendly announcement from Draghi.

Gold was hit again when the completely useless jobless claims report was released. Gold is hit automatically every time this report is released.

The blatant market interventions in both the stock, oil and precious metals markets reflects the increasing desperation of the western Central Banks and Governments to use the markets as a mechanism to hide the truth about the underlying deteriorating economic and financial condition of the western economic and political system.

I have a bad feeling that when they lose control of their ability to hide the truth, we’re going to find out the true purpose of the Jade Helm exercises that have been going on since July 15.

Why is it necessary that I wake up and I’ve got military helicopters flying through my neighborhood? Are these guys [the Government] going to turn on us? Seriously. – Rory Hall, Shadow of Truth

Very little has been mentioned in the alternative media, truth-seeking blogosphere about Jade Helm since the military operation began formally on July 15. Colorado is one of the six “combat” States. Although I don’t bother to spend much time following local news – which caters to an audience that has cat food for brains – I have not noticed any media coverage of the military exercises.

Comment from “Chris” in Denver:Heaven help us, we live in bizarroland. About 6 months ago I saw that train that was hauling hundreds of MRAPs (armored vehicles) down the railroad track along Sante Fe in Littleton. I knew then they weren’t even trying to hide what’s coming anymore.

However just in the last week on three separate days I spotted a stealth bomber, an aerial exercise being conducted by 4 or 5 military helicopters and a military personnel transport helicopter.

Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one. – Ben Franklin

Recall that one objective of the operation for the military to practice “assimilating” into the surrounding civilian environment without being noticed as much as possible. It’s really nothing more than an invasion of citizens’ personal rights and privacy. I’m not sure many really care, however.

I am re-printing a reader comment verbatim because it’s one of the clearest explanations I have ever read explaining why the western Central Banks and Governments are attacking the price of gold right now. It’s also just really well-written!

I will point out that, although not obvious on the surface, the “flock” is losing faith in the dollar out of a desperation that has been imposed upon them by the elitists unwittingly. When the history books are written on this period of time, what is occurring now will be explained as an unintended consequence of pure evil seeded in hubris. Hillary Clinton is the poster-child for this. I will elaborate on why I say the “flock” is being forced into “fleeing” later.

Here is “Zen’s” explanation for the historically unprecedented intervention in the gold market:

The entire Western financial system could be likened to a church and the dollar a religion built on a firm foundation of faith. Nothing more. It survives and thrives so long as the community of faithful continue to believe in the almighty dollar story and the higher power that prints it.

There are some big holes in the almighty dollar story and many vocal naysayers claiming that the dollar is not real, the religion is a fraud, and the church is corrupt, but nothing yet has surfaced to cause the flock to doubt their faith, as a result the dollar remains sacrosanct and is still worshiped by the masses. Consequently the high priests continue to preach the gospel according to Keynes, attract more believers, and the almighty dollar remains inviolate.

However, if evidence where to surface that the religion is a fraud and the dollar not real– that it is, in fact, only paper and ink, therefore has no intrinsic value whatsoever, the high priests of finance and the pressmen at the print shop would go out of business literally overnight, the dollar would fall from its privileged perch, and the flock of parishioners would become become so disillusioned that they would quit the church. No doubt some people would seek out a new church and many would become atheists, however most would turn to gold for their salvation.

The high priests and priestess of finance are well aware this fact, therefore they see their #1 job to protect the sanctity of the almighty dollar story at all costs –for the entire dollar religion depends on it. Anything that threatens the dollar threatens the church, and hence is a threat to their power and privilege. This cannot be allowed to happen.

Gold represents the major threat to the dollar not because it is competition for the dollar but because it contradicts the entire dollar narrative, bringing into question not only the church leadership, but in truth, the entire dollar religion. Gold therefore is antithetical to the dollar and is the antithesis of everything it stands for. You could say, gold is the anti-dollar.

Gold’s 5000-year old history as money is totally incompatible with the tall tale the high priests of finance have been preaching to their flock, which is why gold must be suppressed, hidden from view, and condemned, and anyone who believes in it disparaged as a blasphemer and gold bug.

Simply put, gold rises when the dollar falls…and not until then. So long as the community of faithful remain captured by the dollar religion and continue to believe in the church leadership, gold will remain to them little more than a shiny relic from antiquity, and the price will reflect this sentiment. If however peoples faith in the dollar is shaken, then they will turn to gold for their salvation and the price will rise.

Until that day I refuse to attend church or place my faith in the paper dollar religion, instead I wait for the second coming of gold …

It’s unfortunate that the majority of people in the United States refuse to accept anything that’s not spoon-fed to them by the mainstream media or admitted “trustful” by politicians and business elitists. But the sign-posts of collapse are planted everywhere for anyone willing to put forth the effort to read them. I have not fully decided if the mass-engendered impulse to ignore reality is a product of sheer stupidity, slothful ignorance or willful denial.

Most people have chosen either to overlook the Jade Helm 15 exercises which “officially” begin next month and run through mid-September. Of course, there are been thousands of reports of ongoing military exercises and mass military equipment movement via rail from many States, including here in Colorado. The mainstream media is fueling the public’s determined ignorance about Jade Helm by not reporting the event, for the most part.

However, now it has been reported that Department of Defense officials are now admitting that the Pentagon has been preparing for mass civil unrest:

A new US Department of Defense (DoD) research program admits that the Pentagon has long been concerned about widespread social break down. Even more striking of an admission is the fact that they have been funding universities to create models of the dynamics, risks and tipping points that would all be part of large-scale civil unrest in the United States.

The article references source material, so it would be impossible to impose skepticism on the evidence. Anyone denying this reality is therefore hopelessly stupid or tragically naive.

I will have more on this later, but many have noticed some isolated events which indicate the global bond markets may be experiencing pre-collapse tremors. A bond market selling avalanche is the worst nightmare of the Central Banks.

Many analysts have been pointing to September as the time period when the real brown stuff begins to hit the fan. There are several possible trigger events, including the possible de-linking of the yuan from the dollar by China. Perhaps it is no coincidence the official Jade Helm exercises have been timed to end on September 15…

You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality – Ayn Rand

Beware of the leader, who strikes the war drum in order to transfer the citizens into patriotic glow, patriotism is indeed a double-sided sword. It makes the blood so boldly, like it constricts the intellect. And if the striking of the war drum reached a fiebrige height and the blood is cooking and hating, and the intellect is dismissed, the leader doesn’t need to reject the citizens rights. The citizens, cought by anxiety and blinded through patriotism, will subordinate all their rights to the leader and this even with happy courage. Why do I know that? I know it, because this is, what I did. And I am Gajus Julius Cäesar.

4th Gen warfare also relies on fooling the target population into supporting measures that are secretly destructive to the people. For example, liberty movement support for controlled opposition such as Russia or China, or liberty support for a military coup in which the top brass are elite puppets just like the Obama Administration. Think this sounds far fetched? It has already happened in our recent history! Marine Corp Major General Smedley Butler was hired by corporate moguls to lead a paid army in a coup against Franklin D. Roosevelt (also an elitist puppet) in 1933. Butler luckily exposed the conspiracy before it ever got off the ground. Both sides were controlled, but the coup if successful could have resulted in popular support for the expedient erosion of the Constitution, rather than a slow erosion which is what took place. – Brandon Smith, Alt-Market.com

What’s the motive? An uncontrollable collapse of the U.S financial and economic system. Most of you are already aware of the Jade Helm 15 military exercises which reportedly run from from June 15 – Sept 15. But many of you have been reported seeing highly unusual military equipment movement via rail and other various exercises. One of the local readers of this blog emailed me a detailed of paratrooper exercises being conducted at Chatfield reservoir in southwest metro Denver. Chatfield is surrounded by large areas of open space and is a popular hot air balloon launching location.

For those of you not up to speed on Jade Helm, I covered it in this blog post: Jade Helm 15.

Somethihttp://investmentresearchdynamics.com/wp-admin/post-new.phpng highly unusual and extraordinary is definitely going on in the Government’s military complex. There has been a large-scale movement across the country to outfit local police forces with advanced military equipment.

This is not the same country into which I was born in 1962. Many trace the evolution of the movement to a totalitarian Government to the founding of the Federal Reserve and the authorization of the Internal Revenue Service. If you have not seen it, I would strongly urge you to watch Aaron Russo’s “From Freedom to Fascism,” which chronicles the very long term implementation of totalitarianism in the United States. I will be absolutely shocked if you are not thoroughly horrified after watching that documentary.

It all fits. The U.S. Government’s domestic military exercises, a collapsing economy, rising social unrest, a large portion of the population which is not working, the inexorable rise of patriotism (“honor the heroes” promoted everywhere, including at halftime of almost every professional sporting event).

If I didn’t know better, putting it all into a long-term historical context, I would say the elitists have done a very good job of “boiling the frogs.” The only question left in my mind is whether or not enough “frogs” have not been intellectually incapacitated and are capable of rising up in resistance. Please note: the French Revolution was executed by less than 2% of the population…

A friend and colleague of mine was chatting with a business acquaintance last week. The acquaintance had been stopped at a train crossing. What he described was a bit of shock: the train itself was at least a mile long; every train car was loaded with military police equipment, including dozens of tanks and vehicles – all kinds of artillery; based on the markings on the equipment, it appeared as if the equipment belonged to the Dept of Homeland Security; the train was headed north.

Why would a train loaded with military equipment be headed north out of the Denver area? It clearly was not being moved to a port for shipment overseas. This was equipment destined for domestic use.

When I mentioned this to my colleague Rory Hall (The Daily Coin), he told me that Dave Hodges (The Common Sense Show – we’re hosting Hodges on our next Shadow of Truth podcast, which should be posted Sunday or Monday. ) was fielding similar reports from his blog audience from all over the country. Hodges has been collecting videos taken of these trains. Apparently there’s a massive amount of military equipment being moved all around the country.

The question is, what is the purpose of this large scale deployment of domestic-use military equipment? Perhaps Michael Snyder of End of the American Dream blog is on to something:

What in the world are the elite up to? In recent days, we have learned that the New York Fed is moving a lot of operations to Chicago because of concerns about what a “natural disaster” could do, the federal government is buying 62 million rounds of ammunition commonly used in AR-15 semi-automatic rifles for “training” purposes, and NORAD is moving back into Cheyenne Mountain because it is “EMP-hardened”. In addition, government authorities have scheduled a whole host of unusual “training exercises” all over the nation. So are the elite doing all of this in order to prepare for something really BIG, or should we just chalk up all of this strange activity to rampant government paranoia?

There’s definitely something extremely unusual going on behind the scenes, out of sight, and unreported by any mainstream media and most alternative media.

I believe that something is collapsing behind the veil of the rising stock market. The effort to keep a lid on the price of gold has never been this intense or blatant in the 14 years that I’ve been involved in the precious metals sector. The intra-day volatility of the S&P 500 has been incredible. Nearly every morning the S&P 500 starts to drop quickly and within a couple hours, miraculously, it’s pushing positive territory.

In sharing these observations with Bill “Midas” Murphy last week, he said that he had just got off the phone with John Embry and Embry has said the same thing I had written to Bill. We both think that something has collapsed or is collapsing – likely a massive derivatives melt-down – and the Plunge Protection Team is working overtime to prevent this fact from being reflected by the stock market and gold.

Perhaps the military preparations are in anticipation of the time when the elitists can no longer keep the markets from reflecting the truth and the public decides it’s time to take back their country…